I just realised that I haven’t killed an insect in twenty-four years. At first, that was because of what my Uncle Joe told me when I was five: all insects have souls, and if you kill them they return as ghosts and haunt you. I then asked my Aunt Lucy if that was true, and she said that Uncle Joe was talking rubbish: insects don’t have souls, but their insect pals would find the body and make your life miserable forever.
I didn’t know which one to believe, and so I decided both had to have truth in them. Even after I became an adult and stopped believing both of those things, I guess the habit just stuck.
Well, until now. I had to call someone about pest control in Mornington after we discovered a minor invasion of cockroaches. I’ve left John to deal with it, so here I am at work, thinking about how screwed I would be if cockroaches actually had souls and vengeful family and friends. And they do things like spider and rat removal as well. Are they any different?
So, you call in some people to get rid of rats, and of course there’s an unavoidable loss of life, but rats are a lot more intelligent than insects. I feel like as a community, they have some understanding of pest control and why it’s important. The ones who invade people’s homes are the rogue ones who seek their fame and fortune through illicit means, and so they cut themselves off from the rat community.
So yeah, if we had a rat problem, I wouldn’t fear any real repercussions. The rats would understand that pest control needs to be done. In fact, they probably know all about pest control. Frankston is basically a place where rogue rats are taken down by the rat police.
Cockroaches, though? They don’t have the brains to work this stuff out. They’ll just see their dead friends and come for mindless revenge.
Yeah, we definitely need to move.
-Elsa